WolframAlpha in Physics

For about a year and a half now I have been using WolframAlpha (WA) in class. Students may use it for any assignment or assessment. This changes the problems that you assign. Drastically.

Many easy problems can be simply cut and past into WA and solved. So what becomes important is assigning problems that get at the real skills we would like students to have from problems. Problems that they have to break apart and digest and put together the simple things that WA can solver for them. This is not unlike what I do when I solve problems in my own work.

What I did not know until now was how little of that kind of problem solving I used to teach. I assign many fewer problems that are much harder and require a ton more thinking. Since this is not what I am used to many of my old methods of teaching problem solving are not working as well. Here is the punch line: WA is making me think that I need to have my students talk more about the problems they are solving. This technology is making me see a need for my students to be more social. I should have read Frank's post more closely.

There are so many complaints out there that technology makes us less social, but I think in the end it frees us to be more social. But it is hard work getting there.
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Hi Jim,

Good post! I've been asking students to model the problem with graphs, motion diagrams, force diagrams, etc. and asking them to justify whether their representations are consistent with each other. Sometimes my problems are "goal-less" -- instead of asking them to solve for the values of variable I specifiy, I ask them to solve for as many things as they can with the given information.

Can you give an example of an "old" problem (pre-WA) and a "new" problem (post-WA) that you have assigned?

Thanks!
Frank

— Frank Noschese
I really like the idea of goal-less problems, do you get a lot of variability in a given class period?

Here is an example. Before I might have assigned: To what temperature will 7560 J of heat raise 2.98 kg of water that is initially at 11.9°C? This can be solved with relative ease in WolframAlpha. Now I pick a problem like: A 175.0 g piece of lead is heated to 83.0 ˚C and then dropped into a calorimeter containing 511.0 g of water that initially is at 18.0 ˚C. Neglecting the heat capacity of the container, find the final equilibrium temperature of the lead and water. While each sub part is relatively easy to solve in WolframAlpha, figuring out how the sub parts fit together is the physics, so that is what I want to focus on.

Do you suppose that I need to at least give the opportunity to work some shorter ones before moving to the more complicated. In the instruction I often work the small parts.

— Jim Peterson
Here's an example of a HW set for my AP class which has a gradual progression of problems. The first problem is broken down into very small steps to help students get started. The second problem requires taking some of these steps themselves. In the third problem, they need to take most of the steps on their own. http://bit.ly/fe6Pb3

For an example of a goal-less problems, see this problem (which tell the kids what to do. These statements are gradually removed as the year progresses): http://bit.ly/h8Rfb2

And also this example and the successive problems: http://bit.ly/gOQMti

We haven't done energy and momentum yet, so we don't have too much variability in the student work. I assume as we develop more analysis tools (conservation of energy, etc) the boards will start to look more different, but I bet students might still be solving for the same quantities, but they'll have various ways of doing it.

— Frank Noschese